Guns In My Syrah…

It was Saturday night and I was going to a friends house for dinner.  I make it a point to never show up to someones house empty-handed, so I reached for a bottle and went on my way.  I had never tried the wine before, and had no idea that before the evening was over, firearms would come into play…

The wine in question was a 2002 Kevin Arnold Shiraz from Stellenbosch, South Africa.  I had picked it up on sale (of course)… the label had looked intriguing.

We cracked it open and poured it immediately.  The nose was a little sharp, and then when the wine touched my tongue, shazam!  I was overwhelmed with a flavor that I couldn’t describe other than saying, ‘wow there’s this earthy, rocky thing happening here…” I have to admit, I wasn’t sure what to make of it.  Upon researching the wine, I found out that the official description of the note I was tasting was ‘gunflint’.  Huh?  I couldn’t help but chuckle at the thought of a wine flavor being described as gunflint, but upon reflection, it was pretty accurate.

Now here’s the kicker.  I laid off the Syrah for a few minutes, and upon pouring another glass not 45 minutes later, the flavor had smoothed in nicely with notes of Cherry and Raspberry and just a dusting of oak.  The ‘gunflint’ was still there, but it became much more of a background note that simply made the wine textured and interesting.  We drank it down to the last drop…

The lesson here:  DECANT.  I suspect that had we decanted the wine from the get-go it would have been a different initial experience.  Incidentally, Steven Tanzer gave the wine an 89.  I bet he decanted before he drank…